La Linda's Blog

I was promised a better life if I got my degree and spoke proper English.

Paper cuts. We have all had one, if not ninety nine and counting. That imperceptible slice and sting, the almost invisible line on the tender skin of our hand. “Ouch” we think or maybe even say if it is a good long cut.

But we usually don’t go around talking about it. Compared to other bruises and injuries, it is not bound to generate much sympathy. We put a bandaid on it at most and go about our lives, reminded for a few days that we are a little tender when we bend our finger or hold something just so.

The paper cuts I am alluding to are different. They aren’t physical and they aren’t, generally speaking, inflicted by our careless departure from the present moment. The paper cuts I am talking about are generally verbal, spoken carelessly. They are words that remind me that, despite my educational achievements and middle class status, I am still living in a world that denies my cultural differences.

There is the imperceptible slice and sting in my heart or gut, the almost invisible welt on the tender regions of my soul. “Ouch” says my body, recoiling slightly. I rarely say much in response they days, having found the speaker believes they are immune to racism, sexism, classism or any other form of modern, subtle oppression.

Basically, to respond is to receive another cut, sometimes deeper and more painful than the initial cut. To return to the physical paper cut analogy, it is as if the thin paper turns into a sharp knife that is intentional rather than accidental. “No, I am not insensitive or racist or in anyway part of the forces that maintain the disparities in wealth and health in this country.”

So I generally keep the “Ouch” to myself, knowing people still believe in the level playing field for people of color. The cuts you will read about happen exactly when I am in a place of privilege, engaging in activities that I have access to because of my economic and class success. It is exactly in those moments when a cut is likely to occur, because I am more likely to be with white people in particular who don’t see where I or my familia have come from. As one woman told me when I did multicultural consulting and training: “I don’t see you as Latina, I see you as middle class”.

A few years ago I realized that writing down the psychic paper cuts was like putting salve on my physical paper cut. It helped me acknowledge the tender spot without making more of it than it was due compared to the blatant oppression still experienced by those without my privilege. Sin embargo, there are days when the cuts come in waves or are targeted in the same tender spot of an earlier slice and I need to take some very deep breaths and remember we are all connected despite the sense of separation fed by these cuts.

Writing these cuts allows me to look with curiosity and fearlessness at the situation rather than cringe with fear or add fuel to the fire of rage that singes me when it gets too big. I see the human suffering that causes so much separation and I sink more deeply into compassion for my paper cuts so that I have compassion for others on the receiving and giving ends.

Pema Chodron says it well:

“The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes.“

I am at my Toastmasters meeting, having delivered my second speech on the Value of Nutritional Cleansing for Optimal Health. After the meeting a woman comes up to me and suggests I can give a speech on all the Spanish words in Marin and the greater Bay Area so I can teach them. I just smile, because I don’t want to “teach” them about that and what I would have wanted was her interest in the speech I did give. A few meetings before the President had asked me to say something in Spanish and English about Cinco de Mayo. I did, but I used the opportunity to point out it was NOT Mexican Independence Day. I asked if anyone knew the real date and no one did so I did let them know it was September 16th and that Cinco de Mayo was a small battle won in Puebla against the French. Hope it didn’t mess with their tequila shots.

I am leaving a meeting with the only Latino Vice Principal at my kids’ high school. along with another Latina parent and the Latina parent liaison. I see the principal with another administrator and take the opportunity to remind him the group he is meeting with cannot make a decision on funding as the meeting was not posted 72 hours in advance. He looks at the Vice Principal and says, with a smile: “You are supposed to protect me.” The other man laughs and adds: “Yeah, keep the troublemakers in check.”

They think because they are ‘joking’ that the impact will be light, and they are wrong. I suddenly feel like I am in a gang, rather than being part of a respected community group that has been advising the school district for years on how to better serve Latino students and their familias. They think they are trusted allies so I should only applaud rather than hold them accountable.

In the end, they think they are the only ones who make jokes rather than look me in the eye and treat me with the seriousness with which I made my request. They don’t know that the two responses I usually get are ‘joking’ or ‘you hurt my feelings’, like a recent email from a teacher who “couldn’t sleep well” as she reflected on the concerns I raised at a meeting about a lack of information. The next response from that group of ‘allies’ was to question my ability to speak at the meetings since I wasn’t officially elected, even though they bemoan the lack of participation by parents of color.

Sometimes it is hard to figure just exactly how they want me to ‘behave.’ I guess that’s why I don’t try, and why they keep trying to keep me in check.

I am at Farmers Market in Berkeley, sitting on the curb with my seventh grade twins, munching on the vegan taquitos made by our neighbor at his food stand.

There is a small group parents talking about school choices after sending their kids to private elementary schools.

“Are you sending yours to Berkeley schools?”

“No, Berkeley Middle schools freak me out.”

My kids are in one of those freaky schools, and I know what their language code means. My kids’ school is 80% black and brown kids.

I look at my kids and wonder if they have heard, but they are happily dipping their taquitos into the delicious guacamole salsa and enjoying the late afternoon sun.

I am feeling chilled as I hear the parents’ conversation turn to the topic of private middle schools. I lick my fingers and stand up.

“Come on, freaks,” I playfully nudge my kids as we walk to our Prius. “Let’s go home.”

I am a substitute in a college level teachers class on how to teach ELL (English Language Learners). I raise the issue of how and why Latinas don’t learn English from some work I have been doing with an advocacy organization of immigrant women.

The class is 90% white women and one asks me: “What kind of jobs do they do?”

I paused, letting the cut settle down so I won’t scream or walk out.

“Well,” I begin, “they are your gardeners and they provide child care and they clean your houses, schools and offices and they cook your food at restaurants and clear your tables.” I stop there, although I could have added: “They sew your clothes and plant and harvest your vegetables and fruit and plaster your walls.” But I have made my point and just want the class to end so I can leave Contra Costa County.

After class, one woman comes to educate ME about resources for Latino immigrants, while another give me a speech about the importance of literacy and the need for Latinos to learn English. I am used to this outpouring of knowledge by white people about my people, as if to prove they are not ignorant white folks.

They don’t think for a minute that I might not be grateful or that a number of white people have already come before them and told me about what Latinos need. I just nod and keep packing up my gear and then start walking out of the room as they seem unable to stop talking and trail out behind me.

Warrick Brown died tonight. Kudos to those of you who know exactly why this is a paper cut with no more words to explain.

I grieved his character, grieved all the black and brown men who are killed off in TV and movies. Acting while black/brown. AWB.

It means you are the one who will not find true love and leave a show– statistics on camera will match those on the street. I expected more from CSI. It cuts because I don’t get to have my favorite men of color characters stay on a show  until it is cancelled or in a movie until the credits roll.

It’s subtle, it’s explainable, and it happens too often to go unnoticed and unfelt.

Recent examples include Edi Gathegi, who plays Armando Muñoz in X-Men: First Class. Now thats a double kill – Kenyan playing Latino, only black super hero who dies in first 20 minutes.

I googled “black men killed off in movies and here are some ‘cuts’ from yahoo answers to: Why do the black guys get killed in the movies?

“There is always an obligatory black guy in every horror movie just so that people know the producers are not racist. However, since he’s always just a throw in character, he always ends up getting killed off with the rest of the non-vital characters.”

“That is a very vague and unanswerable question. Many different people of different races, genders, and religions get killed in all sorts of different kinds of movies. So the fact that it may seem to some people that certain races get killed off in movies, that is subject to the viewer.”

“the same reason why girls always fall down when being chased.” Love it!

AND finally, “Everyone dies in the movie. Except for midgets. Better get on that, Hollywood.”

The flippancy or analytical comments create the sense that it is all “subject to the viewer”, as one comment noted.

Another google says: If you’re gonna go after the black man nowadays, you might want to check the credits to see who’s playing him. If it’s no one you’ve actually heard of, they’re probably fair game. Tony Todd? Go for it. Samuel L. Jackson? You can take your chances, but I don’t like your odds. Rosario Dawson? Yeah, good luck on that. Denzel Washington? Bad idea. Morgan Freeman? You should give up. Will Smith? Run away and hide.”

While I am royally peeved with Disney for killing off the mothers (Bambi and Finding Nemo to name a few), Here’s the color equivalent: “It just so happens that Mufasa, voiced by James Earl Jones, dies heroically early in the story. Thus black guys also die in children’s animated features. No shame, Hollywood, no shame.”

And even robots follow the same storyline: “In recent years, Michael Bay received accusations of creating racially insensitive Autobots in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Fans know his first incident was the single (yes, the only) killing of an Autobot voiced by a black guy and given a hip-hop persona in the first Transformers. Jazz, a fan-favorite autobot, got little screen time and died like a punk at the hands of Megatron.”

These last two tidbits are from a link worth checking out. She is very detailed and even includes a video clip where Samuel L. Jackson is eaten by a shark after inspiring the four remaining white actors to come together and survive. http://playeraffinity.com/movies-featured/why-they-always-gotta-kill-a-brotha.html

I was rear-ended and needed x-rays. My chiropractor referred me to another chriopractor who does x-rays.

He ushered me into a small room and I was overwhelmed with his body odor. I breathed through my mouth as he positioned me into 7 different poses and stepped back behind a wall to snap an image. While he was developing 2 at a time I gulped in air and reminded myself it would soon be over.

I was sitting in the waiting room as the last few x-rays dried when he came in and peer closely at me.

“Are you Hispanic?” Great, I thought, I am going to listen carefully because I know a paper cut is about to nick me.

“Yes.”

“Do you speak Spanish?”

“Yes.” The best approach for incoming paper cuts is to assume a lizard like gaze and slow down your internal organs.

“Really well?”

Apparently he is fishing for a no, but I disappoint him.

“Yes.”

“Well,” and here I settle down in my chair, not looking at the Latina receptionist, knowing a monologue was coming.

“Most Hispanics I know don’t speak Spanish,” here he pauses and points several times toward his receptionist, whose head is down, “and my grandparents were from Italy but we don’t speak Italian and we didn’t take over and there is alot of propaganda out there and I don’t think you’re going to take over, people are really ridiculous. I used to be a teacher and 90% of the Hispanics, and that was thirty years ago, didn’t speak Spanish. Well, that is my speech.”

He walks off to the back to get my x-rays.

Sometimes the best response to a speech is silence, so I took the manila folder of x-rays he hands me, say good bye to the receptionist and walk out into the sunshine.



All the US TV focus on the 2008 Beijing Olympic platform diving coverage was on the USA woman, Laura Wilkenson, who finished ninth and on the top three women who were in competition. At the end of the competition, I noticed the 4th and 5th place finishers were Mexican, but there was no coverage of their dives.

Yes, Laura was the US born diver, but with a potential 12.7 million Mexican immigrants and many more US born Latinos in the TV audience, it would had made perfect marketing sense to have shown Paola Espinosa and Tatiana Ortiz come as close as they could to a medal.

Earlier in the competition, they had finished 3rd in synchronized platform diving, the first medal won by Mexico in the games and the first medal by a female in diving for Mexico. They were a great story that was buried because it just didn’t seem of value to the TV executives.

“I don’t mean to be sexist, but she has 5 kids. How is she going to take away all that time for the job? It’s not a 9-5 job.”

While I am not a fan of Sara Palin, I flinched on the BART train when I heard this.

I wanted to turn to the man and say: “Yes, you do mean to be sexist. You don’t give a thought to the other males running for office and how many kids they have because you know they have females to care for them and you particularly still think parenting is not a primary role for men, it is a ‘catch as catch can’ pastime that he, and probably you, are rarely judged on.”

George Bush had 5 kids, Franklin Roosevelt had 5 kids and was in a wheelchair, John Edwards had 5 kids (1 from his mistress) and I can’t imagine this ever being a conversation between men, or even women, on the BART train.

I was in a weekend writing class taught by a Latina, a rarity in itself. I had given myself enough time to get there early, park and grab a cafecito, but the parking signs on the UCLA campus were poor and I drove around as my twenty minutes dwindled to negative five.

I felt a surge of tears that tapped into the pot of mitote (ala Don Miguel Ruiz, also known as Samsara in Buddhism) labeled: “Even when I plan for spaciousness I can still end up boca abajo. The second pile of mierda I stepped into was: “I hate being late to a group of white people where I will unconsciously fulfill the stereotype of black/brown people not being on time.”

Then I was really holding back tears as I walked quickly to the Public Affairs building. I did not want to represent my race, I just wanted to accept what was and gracefully step into the class 10 minutes late. I remembered my rescue remedy lozenges and slipped one into my mouth as I stepped into the elevator. When two white women came in later than me, I knew they were only representing themselves.

At lunch I got my food and saw my teacher sitting alone at a table. I do workshops myself so I chose to smile at her and find a table away from her so she could have a real break. She had already told us her voice was scratchy from a cold.

As I sat alone, I saw another woman from the class go right up to her and ask to join her at her tiny table. Cut, cut, cut.

Later in the day as we were reading our third excerpt to demonstrate point of view, she said: “You can tell I’m a little biased toward Latin American authors. I will try to mix it up.”

I wanted to say “NO!” None of my white teachers even felt they needed to explain why they used mostly white authors. If these women were exposed to the US education as I was, they have had very little exposure to the wonderful authors she had us read. She could have said just that – her choices WERE mixing it up and giving us all more abundant options than the 80% of other writing classes. I wanted to tell her that her choices of excerpts were exactly why I signed up for her class and chose to spend my birthday weekend with her.

I can’t wait to get Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo and the bilingual version of Aura by Carlos Fuentes!

I am waiting with other women to play tennis. The two courts are full. One group of women has said they will leave in 10 minutes and the other, two men, say they will stay another hour. We are waiting for the women. Talk then turns to how long can people use a court when others are waiting. Half an hour, people think.

“Yeah, but would you tell that big black man on the other court to leave?”

Cut. Alright now, I think, we have stepped out of the rational into the irrational area of the brain and I am disappointed in the elderly Japanese woman, who I think is kick-ass on the court, for saying this.

“That isn’t the issue for me. These folks said they were leaving in 10 minutes.” I say.

She repeats a version of what she said earlier and I again shift to what is the rule so we can get back to decision-making and responses grounded in reality rather than stereotypes.     “Does nobody really know the rule? I think half an hour is really short- once you get to a court it seems like you should get an hour.”

There are a few more comments, but I am fading into my thoughts, scanning my surroundings in a more conscious way. The group is all women, mostly in their sixties and seventies, two Asians, three white women and me, the lone Latina, the “baby” in the group.

Most of us met at our twice weekly tennis classes, taught by a black man who is not as tall, but who takes no crap from anyone. They have been taking his class for years and attended his mom’s funeral several months back. And still they so easily get caught in the scary, big black man hole. He is playing tennis, for goodness sake, our beloved game.

Even though the other white group playing said they would be done in 10 minutes, 20 minutes passed before they left and no one complained.